“Pterodactyl Tim” Kaine Watch: Lying about SCOTUS Nominee

The Age of Innocence. Tim Kaine was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, but grew up in Overland Park, Kansas. All that folksy Midwestern-ness seemed to imbue Kaine with a decency and honesty that people noticed. One imagines a young man so innocent and naive that he would sneak behind the barn and do nothing. Kaine even interrupted his studies at Harvard Law to help Jesuit missionaries in Honduras run the prophetically named El Progresso School.

Once upon a time in Virginia. Tim Kaine entered politics the old fashioned way – he married into it. While at Harvard, Kaine met his future wife, the daughter of former Virginia governor Linwood Holton. From there Kaine’s political career proceeded rapidly. 1994 – Richmond City Council, 1998 – Mayor of Richmond, 2001 – Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, 2005 – Governor of Virginia. Through all of those Virginia-based positions Kaine was seen as diligent and likable, even by those who disagreed with his leftist views.

Creature from the black lagoon. Kaine’s journey to the dark side began when he became the chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2009. He was no longer operating within the corrupt-but-friendly confines of the bourbon-and-branch water set in Richmond. Now he was dealing with the mentally deranged, venomous reptiles-from-hell in the D.C. swamp. He went from Timmy the Sweet to the Lizard of Oz. His election as U.S. Senator from Virginia in 2013 may have pulled him from the deepest cesspool of Washington’s primordial ooze but he was about to make a move that would cement his position as a central character from the original Star Wars cantina scene.

When you lie down with dogs … …you get up with fleas. In the case of being Hillary Clinton’s running mate – bionic, radioactive killer fleas that infect their host dog with an overwhelming addiction to misrepresentation, deceit and outright lying. Pterodactyl Timmy was hatched in the nest of the high-flying reptiles of the Clinton crime family.

No such Gorsuch. After conversion to the reptilian class Kaine unleashed one of his most outlandish lies. Aiming his beady lizard gaze at then-Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch Kaine claimed on Twitter that,

He has cavalierly referred to contraceptive use – a constitutionally protected right for 50+ yrs – as ‘the wrongdoing of others.’

Kaine’s quote refers to an opinion then Judge Gorsuch wrote in the famous (or infamous) Hobby Lobby case. He was trying to describe how the owners of the Hobby Lobby company felt about contraceptives. In no way, shape or form could anybody have interpreted Gorsuch’s words as being his own opinion of contraceptives. You can find Judge Gorsuch’s opinion here. You can read Mark Hemmingway’s take on the incident here. In true swamp-dweller fashion Kaine hoped that by telling the big lie he could perhaps sideswipe Neil Gorsuch’s nomination. In this case it turned out Kaine’s dishonesty was exceeded only by his incompetence. Neil Gorsuch is now a member of the U.S. Supreme Court.

General orders. Kaine could have simply apologized, perhaps claiming that Twitter was a poorly chosen vehicle for expressing that opinion. But he didn’t. Instead, he wrote a six-page explanation with a 1,000 word summary of how his lie was actually unvarnished truth. Kaine could have saved himself some time by studying General George Washington. It was he who said, “It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.” Unfortunately, Pterodactyl Timmy couldn’t find that quote in his bag of carpet. His bad excuse fell on deaf ears. Ramesh Ponnuru over at Bloomberg was having none of it.

Here we go again. On Monday President Trump will put forth his nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement. Will the high-flying reptile of the D.C. swamp (Pterodactyl Timmy) be able to refrain from further lies about this nominee? Let’s hope so. The last three former governors of Virginia have been Pterodactyl Timmy, Rolex Bob and Terry McCronyCapitalism (whatever happened to that golf cart company, anyway?). We’re getting a bad reputation.

This is the same Kaine that refuses to follow FOIA law. His office doesn’t do anything for the regular person (I’ve tried) and heaven forbid you expect an answer from your elected rep.
In short there are term limits for the POTUS, there should be term limits for all elected officials of any group, no lobbyists, and every last penny under $50 should be documented and a limit of $250 per person and per group membership on the books. Any and all connections should be made public.

I agree with all of your points. Oddly, that puts me in league not only with you but with Robert Reich too. The peoples’ disgust at excessive money in politics is a bipartisan sentiment. Unfortunately, the political class’ desire to keep excessive money in politics is a bipartisan sentiment as well.

What a shame the Republicans nominated Corey Stewart. Stewart may not be a racist or any of the other absurd things the left claims but he’s perceived as a fringe player, at best. Kaine gets a free ride (except from Baconsrebellion). Had the Republicans nominated Nick Freitas they would have a no-name on the ballot. However, a blank slate can be quickly filled in. He could have credibly challenged Kaine on the issues – especially military issues (given Freitas’ tenure as a US Army combat veteran). Unfortunately, the RPV is determined to commit suicide and is well on its way to success.

Given that the political center is a vacuum in this coming Senate race, you might think Kaine and the Democrats would be tempted to move to occupy some of that vacant space. With that strategy his total might inch up above 65 percent and his coattails would be all the longer. But the pressures from the lemmings in the Republican party are being duplicated within the Democrats, and Kaine has always been one of the most liberal of the leading Virginia Democrats. He will stay hard to the left, giving Republican House candidates a bit more breathing room.

His vote is not needed to select a new Supreme Court justice, no more than it was for Gorsuch. All going well that will be long settled before November.

I think the Dems are so confident in Kaine’s re-electability (even before the Stewart nomination) they’ve decided he can become one of their attack dogs. Unfortunately, Kaine is more of an attack poodle than an attack rottweiler. He’s miscast in that role.

I agree with your assessment that Kaine could take more of the middle and even some of the #neverTrump’ers if he’d lean more to the center – especially with Stewart as his opponent. Instead, they’ll probably just stay home this November.

How can this be true? These issues have never been published by The Ministry of Enlightenment & Propaganda. That’s the same institution where one of it’s reporters talking to me about Tysons and other Virginia issues informed me that the editorial board violated firm company policy by pressuring the reporter not to write anything negative about Lt. Governor and later Governor Kaine. If only Dante were living. He’d have written a new version of the Inferno, adding a new section of the ninth ring of Hades for the MSM.

The anti-Stewart wing of the GOP ought to start a write-in campaign against Stewart. It would bring more of the middle and #neverTrump people to the vote for GOP House candidates.

As the country awaits President Trump’s nominee to the US Supreme Court to be announced it behooves us to remember what Ted Kennedy had to say about another nominee …

“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, and schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.”

People rightly complain about some of Trump’s commentary. However, Kennedy’s outrageous comments were made in 1987. The same man who walked away from Mary Jo Kopechne as she died drowning in the car he crashed went on to a long booze soaked career as a US Senator. You’d think that a man who skated on killing an innocent woman by pleading guilty to leaving the scene of an accident would have been more reticent about disgraceful misrepresentations about American justice. Hopefully, the nominee scheduled to be announced tomorrow won’t be subject to the kind of asinine commentary that both Ted Kennedy and Tim Kaine have leveled at other proposed justices.

I’m a loyal supporter of BaconsRebellion at the cheapskate level, and enjoy hearing alternative points of view. But I’m not sure this blog entry lives up to the quality one comes to expect from Bacon’s Rebellion.

Name calling “Pterodactyl Timmy” is the Trumpian method of degrading someone without advancing any ideas. Do we really want to promote that tone and style on a blog devoted to reason and facts?

[Perhaps the answer is “yes”, if personal attacks, rather than logic and reason, attract some readers. For me, it’s not an attractive feature.]

In this post the author degrades without ever actually analyzing Kaine’s position. I followed the link to Kaine’s position (thanks for that) and found it to be reasoned—not that everyone would agree!—but it lays out a method of examining the issue and reaching a conclusion. I wish the blog had presented an argument dealing with Kaine’s logic, rather than name-calling.

There was no logic that needed to be reviewed in regards to Tim Kaine’s deliberate lie about Neil Gorsuch. His Tweet clearly was intended to deceive any reader of that tweet into thinking that Neil Gorsuch was personally opposed to contraceptives. No mealy mouthed blather after that tweet could undo the lie Kaine told. I am not interested in Kaine’s lame attempt at excuse making. I am interested in his record of deception regarding Supreme Court nominees especially given the vacancy now being filled.

Since my article was already longer than I’d like I didn’t include the Washington Post’s own analysis of Kaine’s Tweet. Here is the crux of their opinion …

“Kaine shouldn’t assume that one tweet will capture the pages and pages of nuance and argument that he’s set forth. All we had to do was look at Kaine’s tweet and search the phrase “wrongdoing of others” in Gorsuch’s opinion in the Hobby Lobby case to find that the judge was not directly referring to women’s right to use contraceptives. Gorsuch is no pink-hat donning marcher for women’s reproductive rights, but the tweet is in no way an accurate portrayal of his concurring opinion in the Hobby Lobby case. The tweet on its own would have received at least Three or Four Pinocchios, as it takes Gorsuch’s words way out of context.”

As for calling Tim Kaine a Pterodactyl – lol, you should have heard some of the things I call him when not writing for publication.

I’ve been called Jack the Ripper, Don the Ripper, Donnie Ripoff, etc all my life. It didn’t bother me when I was 5 years old and it doesn’t bother me now. I am fairly certain that Senator Kaine has been called worse than Pterodactyl Tim.

It’s your right to dislike my style of writing. Comment away. However, you might just scroll down when you see my name at the top of an article because I doubt I’m going to change.

Your use of the term “Trumpian” is erroneous. You imply that Donald Trump invented the idea of using ridicule as a political weapon. He did not. In fact it was the left who not only devised this approach but even codified it into a handbook. In 1970 Saul Alinsky published “Rules for Radicals”. There are 13 specific rules. Here’s rule #5:

“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”

What you (and many others) fail to understand is that Donald Trump’s success has come largely by using the same Alinsky-inspired philosophy used by the left for decades against the left. Don’t believe me? Consider Alinsky’s rule #11:

“If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside”

Trump called Hillary Clinton a crook so many times even Democrats began to believe she was shady.

I agree … Using Trump language as a model for discussion and debate just
makes such dialogues almost worthless.. boy have we sunk low…

re: Kaine. Kaine is a politician. He’s not that different from others but do remember that Virginians have had several opportunities to judge him overall against challengers … and to this point – the naysayers are in the minority.

You want real concern. Look at what has happened to the GOP elected and GOP party in Virginia. Having said that – we do have at least three Red State Dems who will likely have to either fold or fall on their swords on the vote. Being politicians like others – I’d be shocked to see them fall on their swords.

Kaine’s 1000-word “legal analysis” is extremely weak judged by any standards. The issue is not whether certain types of contraception are wrong or whether the women using them are wrong. Rather, the issues is whether plaintiff having a honestly held belief that such types of contraception are wrong (or “sinful” in religious terms) but who is compelled to fund them against his/her conscience by federal law can sue under a specific federal statute authorizing people to sue to be exempted from certain laws that allegedly violate their free exercise of religion. The plaintiff wants to challenge whether the federal government can force him to participate in an activity that he believes is sinful according to his religious beliefs.

Conceptually it’s no different from the cases about children in school being exempted from saluting the flag because that violates their free exercise of religion. It’s no different from a Muslim Inman refusing to perform a marriage ceremony for two gay individuals.

But for the ludicrous argument that contraception and abortion have some special standing above other matters in society, there is no reason to treat Hobby Lobby different from my other examples. There is no hierarchy of rights that is to be determined by East Coast Liberals. And if there was a hierarchy of rights freedom of religion should easily top a right of sexual privacy found in penumbras and emanations in the mind of Justice Douglas.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t care whether women use contraception or whether gay people can marry. I have no desire to overrule the results of Roe v Wade, even though it was poorly reasoned. But as a practicing lawyer of more than 40 years I’m offended by slop law – the kind found in Kaine’s 1000-word analysis.

Put me in the Jonathan Wight column. That said, “Pterodactyl Tim” invites a brief reflection: “Pterodactyl” literally means “wing finger” which suggests, dare I say it here, the “flying fickle finger of fate” trophy made so famous by Rowan & Martin a few short years ago. This “trophy” recognized (on Laugh-In) actual, if unintentional or overlooked, achievements worth of public ridicule, derision and scorn. That may be exactly what his nickname is intended to suggest; but I will give Senator Kaine far more credit than that, as to content and as to conscientiousness and as to style, even if I often disagree with him. In contrast, I give you Corey Stewart, and the people who nominated him.

I’m not that smart. Pterodactyls seem like things that belong in a swamp – like the swamp that swallowed nice Timmy Kaine and spat out Pterodactyl Tim.

Kaine’s attempt to assassinate Neil Gorsuch’s character through outright deception was far more insulting than my calling him Pterodactyl Tim.

Kaine is running for re-election. He has overtly lied about a prior Supreme Court nominee. There is another Supreme Court nomination in process. Let’s see if candidate Kaine can refrain from making any bold faced lies this time.

There are two sets of issues associated with Don’s post. One is his use of language — referring to Sen. Kaine as “Pterodactyl Timmy” and accusing him of “lying” about Gorsuch’s opinion.

Personally, I try to avoid anything resembling name calling. It makes those who are already disinclined to agree with me even less inclined. On the other hand, I’ve heard a lot worse insults than calling someone a “pterodactyl.” I’ll let the readers sort that one out.

The other issue is whether it is appropriate to refer to Kaine’s quote from Gorsuch as a “lie.”

Here is what Gorsuch said:

All of us face the problem of complicity. All of us must answer for ourselves whether and to what degree we are willing to be involved in the wrongdoing of others. For some, religion provides an essential source of guidance both about what constitutes wrongful conduct and the degree to which those who assist others in committing wrongful conduct themselves bear moral culpability. The Green family members are among those who seek guidance from their faith on these questions. Understanding that is the key to understanding his this case.”

Here is how Kaine characterized the statement:

He has cavalierly referred to contraceptive use – a constitutionally protected right for 50+ yrs – as ‘the wrongdoing of others.’

It is abundantly clear that Gorsuch did not refer to contraceptive use as “the wrongdoing of others.” His phrase very clearly was referring not to what he personally considered to be wrongdoing, but to questions intrinsic to the human condition. By “all of us,” he meant all of us humans, not “all of us conservatives,” much less “me.”

When called out for his comment, Kaine responded with a rebuttal. Here is the nub of his argument:

I believe the sharp contrast in language between the actual legal question—is there a conflict between the owners’ religious beliefs and the law—and Judge Gorsuch’s oracular description of the case is very telling. The legal issue has nothing to do with “the wrongdoing of others” and Judge Gorsuch gratuitously injects that into the case. His decision to write this concurrence tells you something about his philosophy. His choice to make it about “complicity” and “the wrongdoing of others” rather than just about the clash between the owners’ views and the statute is revelatory of his thinking about the topic. And his universalizing of the question—“All of us” is twice repeated—also shows that he is going well beyond the narrow role of resolving a straightforward legal dispute.

Kaine is making a very different argument here. One can agree with that argument, but one also must acknowledge that he is adopting the tried-and-true tactic of changing the subject. He is saying that Gorsuch’s use of the phrase “wrongdoing of others” is “revelatory” of his inner thoughts and feelings. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But if the words themselves have any meaning, Gorsuch did not himself equate contraception with wrongdoing.

So, does Kaine’s interpretation of Gorsuch’s words amount to a lie? I guess that depends on how we define “lie.” We live in an era in which the enemies of President Trump have accused him of telling more than 3,000 “lies,” including falsehoods, misleading statements, and statements that amount to differences of opinion. In the old days, telling a lie meant to knowingly make an inaccurate statement with the intent to deceive.

In assessing the verisimilitude of Kaine’s statement, we can pick the old definition or the new, au courant definition.

By the old definition (deliberately telling a falsehood with the intent to deceive), no, I don’t think Kaine lied. By the definition adopted by Kaine’s political fellow travelers when applied to President Trump, he did.

I personally think pterodactyls are/were cool. I remember watching Johnny Quest cartoons and there were pterodactyls flying around in the opening sequence (along with an even cooler giant robotic daddy longleg spider that people were trying to shoot in its one big eye). I thought about calling him The Lizard King but didn’t want to insult the memory of Jim Morrison.

Kaine lied. He knew exactly what he was doing. Clearly deceptive, especially the use of the word “cavalierly”. There was nothing cavalier about Judge Gorsuch’s opinion. Certain contraceptives, those that work after fertilization, are seen as a type of abortion by some people. Those people see those contraceptives as “wrong-doing” since they are also seen as a form of abortion.

Will Tim Kaine Tweet that Don Rippert thinks contraceptives are abortion? That would be about as accurate in the context of my preceding comments as his Tweet was in reference to Neil Gorsuch’s opinion.

Kaine has gone from a basically honest politicians into just another swamp dwelling deceiver. When people think about voting for Kaine this Fall they need to remember that this is the “New Worser Tim Kaine” not the guy they remember from his time as Mayor, Lieutenant Governor and Governor.

“Contending that his statement that “there’s nothing going on between us” had been truthful because he had no ongoing relationship with Lewinsky at the time he was questioned, Clinton said, “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

Sorry, Jim, the man Kaine plainly lied. Then he tried to squirm out of it by writing “wrongdoing” out of our vocabulary. Last time I recall the guy still claims to a practicing Catholic. The guy’s an empty suite. As well as a liar.

We need to stop trying to write real words with real meanings out of our vocabulary. Don is fully entitled to his opinion, without anybody placing themselves as some superior judge of who lies and who does not. Plus Don did us a great service by honing in on the infamous Bork Kennedy set of lies. That is what’s at stake here. As we find out every day. Just watch.

Agree. Kaine’s intent was deception and distortion. He then wrote a mealy-mouthed excuse for his lie. He knew exactly what he was doing. He and his pals on the left just weren’t sharp enough to succeed.

I think it is clear Kaine was being intentionally deceptive. (Or more correctly, a staffer wrote something that was intentionally deceptive and Kaine approved.) Unfortunately, most people now give a pass to those they agree with when they do this.

As for Senator Kennedy, he was clearly trying to distort Bork’s record, and it was unfortunately successful.

I’m impressed at the time and care taken to parse this post as far as logic and semantics can carry it. I wasn’t offended by the name “P.T.”; neither was Mr. Wight; he merely called the quips not attractive. His point, though, bears repeating: “Do we really want to promote that tone and style on a blog devoted to reason and facts?” For me the central problem for the media today is how to keep people talking to each other across our deeply-polarized divide even when they bring different information (even “alternative facts”) and come at things with very different priorities. This blog does that far better than most.

You took the time to go back and explain what lay behind the labels. I know, when it comes to characterizing the verbal fancies and flights from reality of just about any prominent politician it’s so easy to talk just to the echo chamber and forget about those who are there to learn something that stretches or challenges them. I’m still struggling to make sense of all that clarification, but thanks for trying.

It wasn’t all that deep a thought to call Tim Kaine a Pterodactyl. In fact, I think it’s a lot less emotional than calling Corey Stewart a racist for example. Or claiming that Neil Gorsuch personally considers those who take contraceptives wrong doers. Or claiming that Judge Bork would seek to restore segregation to America. Honestly, how does “Pterodactyl Tim” compare to those outrages?

Tim Kaine went into the Washington swamp as a relatively honest Virginia politician and came out as a typically dishonest national politician. The Tim Kaine who wants our support today is not the Tim Kaine who ran for governor in 2005. The old Tim Kaine would not have tried to inflame his base with fabrications and distortions. The new Tim Kaine will. I am personally waiting to see what Kaine has to say about Judge Kavanaugh. Has Kaine learned his lesson about distorting the record of a Supreme Court nominee? We’ll see. If not you can certainly expect me to call out “Pterodactyl Tim” again.

I hear your point about this blog being different. Maybe so. The International Journal of Dairy Technology is different too. But maybe not the most interesting periodical. I believe that in addition to Jim Bacon’s wonky analysis and Steve Haner’s insider’s view there is room for a bomb thrower. We also need a liberal as a regular commentator. I wish I could summon up the creativity to espouse broadly liberal causes but I just can’t do it. We need Peter G (or someone like him) back writing articles. This blog has become too conservative / libertarian. And that, more than nicknames for politicians or political institutions, should be what worries the readers of BaconsRebellion in my opinion.

I agree with Don that we need a strong liberal voice on the blog. I’ve talked to Peter about participating in the blog again. He didn’t sound opposed to the idea, but he’s got other priorities at the moment. If other readers would like to see him back, weigh in below. Perhaps he can be swayed.

Actually, thinking on this matter, I have concluded that Tim Kaine is far worse than your run to the mill liar. He lies about other people in order to try to destroy their reputations. He is a professional smear merchant. Too many of us have lost our ability to speak plainly and directly about improper conduct. Until we change that, the smear merchants of this world will get away their their evil deeds like happened with Bork. Whether they be of the right, the left, or the center, smear merchants need to be called out for who, and what, they are. Othewise smear merchants like Ted Kennedy become “Lions of the Senate,” while other chonic liars like LBJ and Richard Nixon become presidents to do all of us tremendous harm.

Well.. I’m relieved I was not tagged as a “liberal voice”!!! 😉 Aside from the words .. I tend to think that Gorsuch – at the end of the day is going to come down on a pro-religious view of contraception and abortion… so we’re basically parsing words… on both sides.. in my view. In the end – elections do have consequences and this is an example.

If this is what a majority of Americans want – so be it – it’s way our system works.

No, Larry, I don’t think a “pro-religious view” is what a majority of Americans want. The Libertarian streak in most Americans says, at the very least, sexual matters behind closed doors are not anyone else’s business, not even a Church’s. The byproducts of that activity — whether it’s innocent, unwanted babies or abortion, or marriage or not, or AIDS or STDs — now, those concern us all. But not the sex. And what enables sex without the ‘byproducts’ is contraception. It’s hypocritical as hell for the religious right to rant about the evils of sex outside marriage (although knowing full well it will occur undeterred), to deny their own and everyone else access to contraception, and then to turn a blind eye to the devastating consequences of unwanted children that their very opposition to contraception has brought into the world.

The problem is, the religious right is vocal, and passionate, and good at shaming those who disagree with them, and politically influential way out of proportion to their numbers, and believes their version of morality should be imposed on the rest of us, and there’s nothing explicit in our federal Constitution or our State constitution that says otherwise.

I was a student in Connecticut when the Griswold case went to the Supreme Court. Connecticut had closed down Planned Parenthood in that State based on a law banning contraception sales and advice, even though “everyone” knew that law was merely winked at and ignored at every drugstore counter. The hypocrisy of Connecticut’s law was bad enough, but when it interfered with the volunteers trying to do something about the consequences, that was damnable. So we cheered the result in Griswold, even if the “right of privacy” the justices found legally implicit in the Constitution seemed a stretch.

What now? I don’t believe the current nominee will take us back to those dark ages. Ms. Barrett maybe, but not Mr. Kavanaugh. But if he proves me wrong I will be just as outraged, and happy to join the shared libertarian and liberal efforts to overrule any such decision. Libertarian values are not reflected consistently in either political Party and on such matters I am ready to be an independent.

Do we need Peter G.’s voice here? I’d love it for a host of reasons, not the least that bombthrowing can be fun! We also need someone to remind us that “liberal” and “libertarian” have common roots, and more than occasionally the small-government instincts of the latter need to be re-examined in light of the harm done to individuals in the absence of a social safety net that works. Government social programs that protect the young and the helpless may not be as desirable as individuals accepting full responsibility for their own choices — but we need both.

And we need to hear from both viewpoints on this blog. In fact I believe we often do already — urban planning, anyone? But more bombs please, they will evoke the reaction they deserve. Thank you DJR.

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